Written in the Stars
by fortythousandth
Summary: When Michiru enlists Haruka's help with studying for an astronomy final, she gets to engage in her two favorite past times: showing off all of her knowledge and thoroughly flustering Haruka.


Haruka nudges the top off the tea kettle, peering with a critical eye at the water inside. No, still not boiling. With a frustrated sigh, Haruka leans against the counter and glares at the kettle, doing her best to intimidate the water into action by just the force of her stare.

She idly wonders just how different her life would be had she been granted the power of fire, as the water somehow manages to remain unfazed.

Haruka's never been a particularly patient person, but if this pot of tea had been just for her, there's no way that she would be so irritated by its slowness. If she alone had the craving for tea, right about now she'd probably be wandering off while she waited to maybe practice an accompaniment for a new piece of Michiru's, or heading down to the garage to tinker with one of the cars. (If history turned out to repeat itself, the tea would rapidly become a nonissue as Haruka's steely focus eradicated thoughts of everything except the piano or the car or whatever she had found to occupy herself. Only when someone else—most commonly a very perturbed Michiru—got irritated enough by the shrieking of the kettle to go yell at Haruka would the tea even be remembered in the first place.)

But that's not the way things are. Rather, this tea is fortification, an elixir, to help Michiru deal with one of the greatest evils she's ever faced: finals.

After they'd defeated Galaxia, Haruka had expected life to slow down considerably. She expected to return to racing, and Michiru to return to concerts, and the Inners and Hotaru to go back and get their high school diplomas, and true, all of those things had been set into motion.

But somewhere along the line, Michiru had decided to take a few college courses—not because she wanted to get any specific job, and not even because she was particularly invested in earning a degree, but _for fun_, of all things. Haruka remains completely befuddled by Michiru's urge to willingly do more school than absolutely necessary: sitting still all day being forced to process information that'll never come up again in the real world? Haruka has no idea how Michiru thought college sounded like a good idea, but Haruka is nothing if not unflinchingly supportive regardless, and during this trying time, it's utterly clear that Michiru needs her.

So when the kettle finally starts to whistle, Haruka snaps into action. She sets up the tray: Michiru's favorite black tea, no milk, the canister of sugar off to the side (Michiru always professes to not take sugar in her tea—it ruins the undercurrents, or the aroma, or the pure essence of the tea or something—although Haruka's noticed that Michiru has the tendency to always sprinkle some in when she thinks Haruka isn't looking).

As soon as she enters the study, which Michiru has commandeered into her temporary finals cave, Michiru, surrounded by a mountain of papers and books, looks up with the expression of someone who has just seen God. "You have no idea how pleased I am to see you right now," she says.

Haruka joins her at the table, grinning. "What, me or the tea?" she asks, contented when the quip earns both an eye roll and a half-smile as Michiru begins to prepare her tea.

Haruka cheerfully dumps half of the sugar canister in her own cup, giving not one single care about the 'pure essence' of tea, and takes a sip. It's so sweet that it kind of hurts her molars, and she swallows with satisfaction. "So how's it going?" she asks.

Michiru takes a long drink and sighs. "It's going better than expected, actually," she says. "Honestly, it's quite a relief to have nothing to worry about during finals season except finals, for once."

Haruka nods in understanding. This isn't their first finals experience together; there had been a couple of sessions at Mugen. But of course, at the time, saving the world had taken precedence over their tests. Now, though, nothing stands in the way of Michiru completely voting her considerable intellect to not just acing, but utterly obliterating her tests. "What are you studying now?" Haruka asks.

Michiru smiles and traces her finger down the spine of the nearest book. "Astronomy," she says. "Such an interesting topic. I don't know why we never bothered to look into this subject; I feel as if I'm learning so much—not just about the universe, but even about us."

"About _us_?" Haruka asks.

"Not just you and I, but all of the senshi. Of course, there's the things that everyone knows. Jupiter's the largest planet, Mars appears red, and things like that. But did you know, for instance, that Venus orbits the sun in the reverse direction of every other planet? Essentially, Venus goes backwards."

Thinking of the Venus she knows, Haruka smirks. "That makes sense, wouldn't it? Cute, but always in trouble."

"Oh, but be careful not to cast stones, Haruka." Michiru hides a giggle behind her hand.

"What?" Haruka's suddenly very suspicious.

"Don't you know that Uranus has a strange orbit as well?"

Feeling suddenly extremely defensive of her planet, Haruka bristles. "Uranus does not have a strange orbit!" she snaps. To be fair, her memories of Uranus from the Silver Millennium are fuzzy at best, but she's pretty convinced that if something was THAT strange, she would have known.

"Make a fist," Michiru says. Warily, Haruka complies. Michiru's cool, slender fingers wrap around Haruka's wrist, guiding her hand in a gentle circle. "This is a normal orbit. And this"—she tugs Haruka's wrist so it's nearly perpendicular to the rest of her forearm—"is Uranus. All of the other planets orbit at a fairly straight up and down manner, whereas Uranus alone orbits at nearly the exact angle of its orbital plane. Uranus is quite crooked."

Haruka pulls her hand away. "Don't even think about making this into a running joke."

Michiru smiles. "I wouldn't dream of it." Haruka will certainly be hearing about this for weeks.

"Tell me something about Neptune," Haruka says, attempting to change the subject.

"Here's something," Michiru says, her eyes going a bit distant. "As we progress past Mars, the distances between planets become dramatically larger. The distance between all of the terrestrial planets combined could fit in the distance just from one gas giant to another."

Haruka's quiet for a moment, pondering that fact. "Why is that?"

"And that's what's interesting: nobody really knows why. There's speculation, of course, about mass and pressure and gravity, but it's still unknown." Michiru sighs. "Which I suppose makes our past lives all the more impressive, when you think about it. We were so far apart back then. If we failed, we had no hope of rescue…"

"Don't worry about that now," Haruka says, because there's no need to worry about it now. "We're together in this lifetime, and that's what matters."

"_Haruka_," Michiru says in that tone she uses when she's trying and failing at not being charmed by Haruka. Haruka, by now, is well aware of this tone, and can't resist feeling a bit smug. But when Michiru notices, she says, "Well, I do have another fact about Neptune that comes with significantly less emotional baggage. Did you know that Neptune, and not Uranus, actually has the strongest winds in the solar system?"

"What?!" Haruka slumps in her chair. "No, of course it does. It would, wouldn't it?"

Michiru reaches over and touches Haruka's arm. "Don't pout. The small details are insignificant, but here's the most important thing: despite the vast differences between all of the planets, they still orbit around the sun, and they still have that common goal. They're always in orbit with each other, bound together solely because of the strongest force in the universe."

Haruka blinks. "Eh? Love?"

Michiru has the nerve to actually laugh openly. "Would you listen to yourself, Haruka! Usagi-chan would be so pleased. No, I mean _gravity_."

"Oh," Haruka tries not to blush. "Well, if you're being literal about it…"

Michiru sets her empty cup of tea back down on the tray. "Yes, I think I'm through with planetary metaphors for the afternoon. Thank you; I'm feeling quite confident about this exam now."

"Well, I'm glad you had a good time," Haruka mumbles.

"Wait, Haruka. I think I'm confident enough about this exam to take a significant study break. And I definitely," she continues, looking up at Haruka through her eyelashes, "would be willing to allow myself, during that break, to indulge in the strongest force in the universe."

Haruka furrows her brow. "What do you want to do with gravity?"

In lieu of a response, Michiru smiles, takes a fistful of Haruka's shirt, and tugs her forward, meeting her lips with a slow, deep, smoldering kiss. Only once Haruka is thoroughly dazed does Michiru pull back. "That's not the answer you gave me a few moments ago," she whispers.

"What—_oh_. Oh!" Haruka can feel the grin creeping across her face. "What, right here? Is this your next finals plan—learning the material by osmosis?"

"Osmosis? So you did pay attention in science class!" A corner of Michiru's mouth twitches with mirth. "However, I don't think you know exactly how much time I have devoted to making this set of notes, so you're excused in this instance, but be warned: these notes don't deserve such an ignoble fate. However, I wouldn't expect a crooked Uranian such as yourself to know this…"

Haruka stands, gently tugging Michiru to her feet. "I'll show you crooked," she whispers in Michiru's ear, relishing the feel of the smaller woman shivering against her. "You were just trying to aggravate me, weren't you?"

Michiru's hand brushes against Haruka's abdomen. "Did I succeed?"

"Yes," Haruka breathes, nudging Michiru up against the wall and trailing her lips down her neck. "Planets, huh? Is there anything you _can't_ make utterly irresistible?"

Michiru purrs and tips her head back. "I suppose you could try to resist me, but why would you want to? Now, would you prefer that we continue our discussion of the solar system? There are other ways to make one see stars…"

"Understood," Haruka beams, and proceeds to reach for the stars.


End file.
